


Atlas

by audithea



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Not A Fix-It, Post-Season/Series 07, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-27 17:49:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15690351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audithea/pseuds/audithea
Summary: It starts with cookies.As things do when Hunk wants to comfort someone. He shoves a whole plate full of them into Shiro’s hands and says: “You’re brooding. Want to talk about it?”





	Atlas

It starts with cookies.

 

As things do when Hunk wants to comfort someone. He shoves a whole plate full of them into Shiro’s hands and says: “You’re brooding. Want to talk about it?”

 

And Lance adds: “What Hunk means to say is: You’re brooding even more than usual and we are not leaving until you talk to us.”

 

It’s only then Shiro realizes he walked into some sort of trap, because it’s rare for the whole team to be together these days. They are all very busy, even long after the Galra have been defeated. There’s so much to do, it seems the paladins are needed everywhere at once. And on top of that they all try to spend as much time with their respective families as possible.

 

But right now they are all crammed into his living quarters. Shiro briefly wonders how they got inside, but Keith has brought Kosmo along.

 

“I’m fine”, he replies. “Good to see you all. I wasn’t expecting you. Did I miss something?”

 

Keith mumbles: “Told you...”

 

“Oh come on; you know what’s going on”, Lance bristles. “You know and you aren’t telling us!”

 

“No”, Keith denies.

 

“You do.”

 

“Guys!”, Allura interrupts.

 

“Fine!”, Keith admits. “I do. Or at least I have some idea. But if Shiro doesn’t want to talk about it that’s his decision.”

 

“Then why are you here?!”, Lance asks.

 

“Blackmail. And cookies.”

 

Shiro makes sure everybody gets some of the cookies in question. It might be a good idea for him to talk about Adam, but that doesn’t mean he wants to go into great detail. Keith probably knows that.

 

“It’s a bit complicated”, Shiro tries to deflect.

 

“We’ve got time”, Pidge says. “And cookies.”

 

Great. No time like the present apparently.

 

“I was ill”, Shiro starts. “Well… my old body was. Before the Kerberos mission.”

 

“You were? You’re not now?”, Hunk asks.

 

“I’m fine. Medical did a check-up before they attached the new arm. But back then the doctors told me I only had a couple of years left before things would go downhill. Sam knew about my health issues, and he still asked me to be the pilot for the Kerberos mission. Iverson was against it, but medical confirmed I would still be alright long enough to do the mission, and Sam insisted it should be me… And in the end I got the green light!”

 

Shiro grins. It feels weird on his face; like he doesn’t do it often enough anymore.

 

“Except my boyfriend was strictly against it. He was worried my health would deteriorate faster than expected, and that I would come back home more dead than alive… In the end he asked me to choose. Between him and the mission.”

 

Lance whistles. “Wow. That’s low. What an idiot.”

 

“I thought so too. At least at that time. It was my big dream, and I had only this one chance… He wanted me to stay on earth, with him. He wanted to make plans for the next years. Move out of the Garrison compound; look for a house somewhere nearby. Get married. He once asked me if we should think about kids, even if I wouldn’t be around to watch them grow up.”

 

“Woooh!”, Hunk chokes out.

 

So much for not sharing too many details. It’s an odd situation. His friends are here because they noticed something was wrong. Because they care.

 

And at the same time they don’t know how to react. He doesn’t share a lot of his personal feelings usually. But now that he has started talking, he doesn’t seem able to stop himself. He needs to get this out in the open.

 

“I really didn’t know how to feel about that. We both joined the Garrison because we wanted to fly. And there he was ready to put it all aside, chasing after all those perfectly _normal_ things. And if the Kerberos mission hadn’t happened, then… maybe? I don’t know. But all I could think about was that I wanted to go out there and touch the stars! If I only had a few good years left, I wanted to make them count. I wanted to look back and know I had done something special with my life.”

 

Allura gives him an encouraging smile. “That’s understandable.”

 

“I was so angry at him for not supporting me… I… uh… I told him he would still be young enough to do the whole home and family thing with somebody else after I was gone.”

 

Lance cringes. Visibly. “Alright. **You’re** an idiot too!”

 

“Not my finest moment, no”, Shiro admits. “But it took me a while to see that. He was talking about _in sickness and in health;_ he wanted to make our time together his priority. And I wanted to spend my last healthy years flying into space instead of spending them with him.”

 

“Making you choose was still wrong”, Keith grumbles.

 

Shiro isn’t surprised. Keith already knows most of this, and he has never been Adam’s biggest fan.

 

“I’m just saying… Neither of us handled the situation very well.”

 

“Do you regret it?”, Pidge asks carefully, and then clarifies: “Accepting the mission? With everything that happened afterwards?”

 

Shiro doesn’t even have to think about that one. “No. Never. I regret hurting him. I regret the way things were between us when I left.” He hesitates. “But when we decided to go back to earth I started to think about all the things I wanted to tell him. About all that’s happened since I left. The good things, and the bad things, and the weird things… About coming home with a whole family, including aliens and pets.”

 

Everybody chuckles.

 

“I really wanted to apologize”, Shiro explains. “And I wondered if there might be a second chance for us. When we came back to earth.”

 

Lance laughs enthusiastically. “So go talk to him! We are here now, right? You are going to romance the hell out of this guy and win him back!”

 

“He’s… dead. He died during the first Galra attack.”

 

The room is silent. Nobody is nibbling on their cookies anymore. Lance is glaring at Keith like he’s trying to convey: _Gee, thanks, you could have warned us!_

 

Then Hunk is clearing his throat. “I’m really sorry.”

 

“Yeah, me too”, Shiro mumbles. And he is. As much as he doesn’t regret accepting the Kerberos mission, he also knows he is going to carry this sorrow with him for a long time.

 

Allura looks like she is going to cry. “This really isn’t fair.”

 

Shiro doesn’t have an answer for that. Because it isn’t. After everything they have all been through, things were supposed to get easier once they were back home. Instead they are always facing a new set of different problems.

 

He doesn’t know what’s going to happen to the team yet. At some point the new _Castle_ is going to be ready. It only makes sense to send Voltron back into the universe and use the _Atlas_ to defend earth in case the Galra come back.

 

He is no longer a paladin. Not really. Maybe his place is here now, even if he isn’t sure he likes it. The idea of _home_ and _second chances_ feels ridiculously naive now.

 

But despite everything that has happened to him in the last years, he has managed to survive.

 

If he’s the one being left behind this time… He will survive that too.

  


_“...and Atlas was condemned_

_to hold up the sky for all eternity.”_


End file.
